Q: I had come for the consecration of Linga Bhairavi in India. Since then my life has changed. I feel Devi’s presence everywhere, sometimes very intensely. Sometimes when I’m driving, sometimes when I’m cooking and I don’t have a problem with it. I have not shared this with anybody so far, except my mother, who is getting very concerned about this. I don’t want Devi to go away from my life. I am very happy feeling her presence. Can you please help?

Sadhguru: Help you or your mother? The nature of Bhairavi is such that She would not like anybody else to be the mother. So no wonder your mother is getting concerned. She is being sort of dislodged, and if you let Her continue like this, She will dislodge your mother. If that is okay with you, then no problem. Powerful forms like this are not created for entertainment or to take care of your survival needs. All those people who are incapable of earning a living or fixing their homes or families, they go and cry, “Oh Devi, take care of me, do this for me, do that for me” – it is not for such people. She does not like incapability. This is not the purpose of the Divine. This is not the purpose of creating a Divine form which reverberates with so much power. The idea is to let Her reverberate in such a way within you that it knocks off everything that you call “me” and “mine.”

Free From Genetics

What you call “me” right now is very heavily influenced by parentage. When someone takes to the spiritual path seriously, not as a fringe affair, when someone takes brahmacharya or sanyas, the first thing they do are the kriyas and karmas that are usually done when the parents die. This is done while their parents are still alive. This does not mean we are wishing them dead. It is just that they have started a process through which they want to become free from their own genetic memory. Genetic memory is largely shaping you the way you are. You may not understand this right now because when you are young, you think, “I am not like my mother and father.” But you will see, by the time you are 45-50, at least 70% of people start behaving exactly like their parents because their genetics are an important part of their making. When they are young, they think they are nothing like their parents because they have not seen how their parents were when they were teens!

Eliminating or becoming free from genetic memory is a very important part of one’s spiritual process. If your parentage is working strongly through you, it will not let you become free, because this has a grip on you from inside. Even if they are dead, they still hold you. It has been expressed in so many ways, using very strong words. For example, Jesus said to leave the dead to the dead. Do not let them live through you.

Swayambhu – The Self-Created

It is not accidental that we always refer to Shiva as Swayambhu, because he is self-created. We also refer to Bhairavi as self-created, because She is. If you make an association with Her, She does not like to have friends who are enslaved. She wants them to be self-created too. So one of the first things She will do is destroy your mother – not the woman who gave birth to you – but the mother trying to live through you. Otherwise there is no such thing as the next generation, there is no such thing as future – it is just the past expressing itself as future in deceptive ways. Only when you become free from your parentage you really have a future. Otherwise, you are just a repetition of the same past, maybe with a little new flavor.

People are usually proud of their heritage and lineage because they have made nothing of themselves. You will see in the United States for example, in the beginning, when they made the country, the most important thing was, nobody asked you who your father was. People were only concerned about who you were. Now it is changing, of course. Everywhere else the second name is important because it suggests the lineage. When people came to the United States, if they did not have a second name, they called themselves “Bingo” or “Jango” or whatever because they did not know any heritage or lineage. But this does not mean parentage will not act from within; it will continue to act. You are really free from them only when you either allow the Divine to sweep through you, or you do the needed sadhana to distance yourself from that. Otherwise you are just a repetition of the past.

If you are just a repetition of the past, there is really no purpose to your existence here. We might as well read a history book. There is no purpose for this generation if it is not significantly different from what the previous generation was. Being different does not mean you wear crumpled clothes because your parents wore properly ironed ones. This is a juvenile way of trying to make a difference. Being different means you have used your past as a stepping stone but never as a crown upon your head. So your mother’s concern, I like it. Let Devi seep through you.

Editor’s Note: Celebrate Devi in her many manifestations – Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. Triveni is an offering from Sadhguru and Sounds of Isha for Navratri. Download the album from Ishashoppe.

A thought does not take you anywhere – but it can set the course of your life.